Pumpkinhead 3: The Prequel
by 14member
Summary: My little prequel to the movie "Pumpkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes". There is little hint of crossover with "Hellraiser".


The storm roared behind a window. Trees bent under the wind almost a half, the foliage and small branches flied in a whirlwind dance, sometimes hitting on a windowpane together with rain drops. The wind howled. The thunder rattled. The lightnings sparkled. However, all this violent nature couldn't prevent Doc Fraser from sleep. He understood perfectly, that tornadoes do not happen in this area, and his house will stand any other wind. There was not a single tree in the distance that could fall on his house. Doc ordered some time ago to cut all the nearest trees, considering such potential danger. So Doc was fully out of danger. In general Doc was going to bed in the good mood – today he was sent new medicine magazines, locals didn't grate on his nerves, he had a pleasant conversation with the priest, and today he finally dismembered one more corpse. This time it was a young 17-year old man who was unfortunate enough to fall down from the saddle directly under the hoofs of his horse. And as teenagers were rare visitors on his slab, Doc thought of this case as a heaven's gift.

Good mood and feeling of safety are the main components of good sleep, and any superfluous noise from the outside was not a hindrance.

At least so it was, when Doc felt something heavy on the shoulder. He shook his shoulder, but it didn't help, so he unwillingly opened his eyes.

- Dahlia? What the hell are you doing here? – Doc raised from the pillow on his elbows, however, the person he addressed was even more frightened and even jumped out of bed.

- Oops … - he heard an answer.

- I am afraid, darling, such an answer will not suit me – Doc turned to his side with a discontented groan, switched on the lamp, and turned again to his unexpected guest.

- Excuse me I woke you up, I didn't want to… – the black-haired girl cast down her eyes, as if trying to hide in her night shirt as in the armour.

- How long have you been here?

- About 5 minutes.

- What's your business here? Go to your brothers!

Well yes, today Doc Fraser was kind enough to allow Wallace family to stay for the night at his place. For the sake of justice, it is necessary to mention, that it was Dahlia's initiative. Precisely, it was her who asked him to let all her family for the night's lodging, as their own hut which looked more like a tent could easily collapse from such wind. And it was not quite dry there during even small rains to say nothing of such a downpour. Doc fulfilled her request, though naturally not gratuitously… Certainly he wouldn't let such ragamuffins as Wallaces walk around his house, so they were given the smallest room with only one big bed in which five persons could easily sleep, even the sixth could lie in feet, and strictly ordered to leave the room only one by one and only to the toilet.

- I cannot sleep near them, they're all stinky and foxy! And Bunt mutters something in a dream!

Doc raised his eyebrow slightly … the girl that had lived all her life with such Neanderthals, would fairly complain about such things.

- And to be more precise?

- Well … damn, disturbing thoughts plagues me … bad thoughts. Restless. Because of these shadows.

- Because of what?

- Shadows of this storm. And this howling…

- Are You afraid of a thunder-storm? – Fraser asked sincerely.

- That's the point that I'm not! I simply observed a thunder-storm behind the window, and I've got unpleasant thoughts. – Dahlia even blushed, as she perfectly understood how silly it sounded.

Doc's eyes swept her, estimating if she was telling the truth. He could hardly keep from saying: "Well, I already hoped, that if I'm hot today and you missed me", but he kept silence.

Instead, he clapped on the pillow with his hand inviting her to lie down. The girl took an instant advantage and in a second she was lying near him under the blanket. Doc couldn't restrain and silently giggled at this situation.

- What's so funny?

- Ah, that's nothing – Fraser answered not ceasing to giggle. All this reminded him of a typical situation – little girl saw a monster under her bed and run to daddy: «Daddy, daddy, there is a monster, may I stay with you to sleep? ».

When Dahlia closed her eyes and it seemed to Doc, she silently got drowsy, he stretched his hand to switch off the lamp when suddenly she broke the silence:

- Doc, could you tell me some story?

Fraser nearly choked with air:

- What? Dahlia, aren't you a big girl for bedtime stories?

- Are you that old to drone? –the girl asked sarcastically – Is that so hard for you?

- Well, and what exactly should I tell you? A joke? The latest news? Something scientific? Or really a fairy-tale?

- Tell me about something scary.

- Well, I thought, that you were frightened of something and now on the contrary wanted to calm down …

- Like cures like.

«The typical feminine logic» - Doc Fraser sighed to himself.

- Well, I don't even know. I don't know any horror stories.

- You lie; we all know some horror stories.

- No, I really don't know. I can retell, of course, «Dracula» or «Frankenstein» …

- I watched screen versions – Dahlia replied discontentedly – I know the plot.

In his thoughts Doc had already started to regret, that he didn't banish this girl to her brothers:

- Well, if you like, I can tell to you about elephantiasis, helminths in eyes and syphilis consequences? That's real horrors!

- Ugh, how disgusting! Doc it's not scary! –Dahlia however started to feel that Doc was already angry, so she decided to change tactics. Her fingers started to touch grey hair on his chest flirtingly. She added in coquettish tone – Would you like me to tell you some horror story, and by this time you'll recollect something?

- Ok, I agree. – Fraser nodded.

- This story is known by all locals, if you want it's our urban legend. It's about a witch, which lives ostensibly on the other side of bogs in the wood.

- Ah, I heard something about that with half an ear.

- Well, this tale scares children. So, a very long time ago when the first people came to these wild places, they began to settle, cut down trees, plough the ground and when they found here some Indian relic they simply broke it, and made kitchen gardens on which they began to grow pumpkins. Since that time people started to disappear. The cattle became rabid, crop began to parish, and diseases spread in the village. For a long time the inhabitants couldn't understand what evil force was killing them. Until once a stormy night, the people saw as through some unimaginable creature was making his way through the trees to the pumpkin beds.

Than the people understood, that Indian construction was not a relic at all, but the lock that kept infernal powers under the earth. So the people of the village decided to choose the most beautiful and most pure girl and give to this creature, to gain its favour. They chose the girl, brought her to the pumpkin beds and left her there for the night. What was their surprise when the girl came back home safe and sound. The inhabitants surrounded her and began to ask, and she told them, that the beast came at night, frightened her but … did not touch her. Only sniffed and returned under the earth. Not believing, that she was still alive, the girl was already going to run home as suddenly the ghost of an Indian witch appeared and told her, that there is a crack between the worlds – between the Earth and the Hell on the earth on which they were standing. Her tribe tried to protect this crack for long centuries, and tried to close it as hard as they could. But the white people came, brought their diseases, and all tribe died, and nobody was left to protect the damned place, and when the white men broke that lock, the infernal powers were set free. So the girl fell to her knees in front of the ghist and begged to help her to save the inhabitants of the village. The ghost answered that she would give her all the knowledge and power in case the girl agrees to live forever in the bogs and become an outsider. The girl agreed. She came to the village to tell her tale, to take only some meals and clothes, and also to warn, that each 50 years the inhabitants should bring another girl to the bogs – not necessarily pure, but ready to become her assistant. Several days passed and all the misfortunes disappeared. And in 50 years another girl came to the bogs … and it lasted a very-very long time. The witch guarded the abandoned pumpkin beds, a new pupil came to her and the cycle repeated. Until the day when the witch met a group of children that had lost their way in the woods near her small hut. She gave them food, water and lodging for the night, and by morning they left to the village, which already expanded into a small town. It would have been a trifle. But, having seen the children, the witch got an insuperable desire to have her own children. But the witch knew that nobody from the locals would find her attractive, so she asked an underworld. There came the demon, that used to terrorize this place, and they agreed, that he would help her to become pregnant, but in return she would be damned with immortality, and would be obliged help with infernal revenge to all who would ask.

- What does it mean? – Doc interrupted her for the first time.

- It means what it means! – Dahlia exclaimed in such a tone as if Doc failed to understand an elementary thing.

- And you're telling me, that this witch still lives in the bogs?

- Well, people say so.

- Nonsense. This ridiculous story won't scare even a child.

- And you don't know horror stories at all!

- Oh no, there is at least one story, that I know – Doc said with an extremely thoughtful air. Intrigued Dahlia, even forgetting the end of her story, turned to her side, made herself comfortable and was ready to listen.

- This history began somewhere in the early fifties. In England, in vicinities of Liverpool, one family have raked up enough money to built a house. A good house, two-storeyed one, wooden, with spacious rooms. … all neighbours and acquaintances were green with envy, glancing on the new house of that family. Human envy seemed to have gone too far. Once when the wife sat in the yard of the house, someone threw something into her. It didn't reach her, but she was angry and ran out to see who had thrown this…she found nobody outside. In surprise she returned to the bench and decided to see what was thrown into her. It turned out to be a small wooden cube. And not a simple cube, all covered with golden patterns. The woman examined it, and decided not to throw it out but to keep. Since that day their life changed and was nearly ruined, the wife became very reserved, she almost never left the house, and her husband became a drunkard.

All were perplexed - why suddenly a strong, happy family began to collapse day after day. To tell the truth the neighbours noticed, that in those few times when the woman left the house she constantly held some small object similar to a cube. Yes, she clutched this cube to her, as if it was her baby. When her husband was drunk he used to murmur that his wife used to hide in the cellar and talk to this cube for hours, and at any attempt of her husband to take this cube out of her, she started at him like a wild cat.

Shortly, as you can guess, Dahlia, the woman was soon found insane, deranged and potentially dangerous to the society, and was sent to a mental hospital. Her husband, definitively heart-broken, gathered his things and left. At least, the locals told me this story in this way.

- And what about that cube? Was it possible to find out, what it was? – Dahlia asked in such a tone as if some cube interested her much more than the broken life of the whole family.

- Do not interrupt me, please. And that house was on sale. Some years later, another family bought it –there were 4 persons – a husband, his wife, 7-years old son, and 4-years old daughter. This family lived well, kids liked their new house, and the new district they lived in, their parents were happy too and never regretted they had bought this house.

Exactly until the day when once in a thunder-storm, the stoppers in the house didn't go off. The father was compelled to go down to the cellar and try to repair them. And when he tried to fix them, but they wouldn't start, he became angry and struck his fist on the wall. Imagine, a stone from that place fell off. The father lighted an empty space and found out, that there was a hiding place. The father stretched his hand and pulled out of it … a guilded wooden cube. Later, when he managed to repair the light, he showed the family what he had found.

They did not know anything about the story that had happened earlier in this house as I doubt, that the father would have hesitated to throw away that cube that very day. And as well as their predecessors the family decided to keep it. Anyway, it was a beautiful knickknack, and Annette liked to play with cubes, pyramids and other figures.

- Annette? So that was the name of the daughter?

- Oh, yes … yes, the daughter's name was Annette. Where did I stop? And well, yes, and so, at the beginning everything was well, the life went with the flow. Until once the wife didn't tell what they had found in the cellar to her neighbour. The neigbour's face turned as white as a sheet, she trembled with her eyes widened with fear when she listened to her. That's how the wife heard the story that had happened in this house before their family bought it. Since that day the woman had nightmares. She said, that she heard the cube talking to her, whispering something sweet and tempting, asked to be opened but when she refused to approach the box, it growled in an inhuman voice, opened slightly and stated at her with hooked chains. In her nightmares she saw the cube turning into a huge gate. Ugly creatures came out of it … took her children by their hands and left back to that gate together with them, and she could do nothing. Her husband, worrying about the health of his spouse, decided to get rid of that cube. But he did not manage to do it because quite and lovely Annette became angry, hissed, strived to bite, but she didn't let to take the cube from her. He thought for a moment, but abandoned the idea. Pity, probably, because by the end of that week the poor woman completely lost her health from that nightmares, and got some women's disease. Her husband disturbed by his health, took her to the hospital. That evening their son and daughter stayed in the house alone. Though the son was still little, he was clever and understood, that before their parents return it is better not to part from his sister. But his sister as if not worrying at all for her mother and the fact they were left alone in the house stayed in her room and played with this cube. To be precise, not quite played, but examined it with her fingers as if trying to find something. The boy watched her. At some moment he felt thirsty and went to the kitchen to have a glass of water…

Suddenly Doc's voice changed its distracted tone; he started speaking in a broken voice and Dahlia couldn't fail to notice it.

- The boy couldn't do anything, he just went to the kitchen when he saw, that the window was opened, before he understood what was happening, some tall figure approached him and he felt a strike…everything went dark before his eyes, he fell to the floor and lost his conscience.

Dahlia was astonished by the rapid pulse of Doc's heart.

- His faint was his salvation. He didn't see the worse. A few times he seemed to have come to senses…for the first time of some scary murmur of a female voice, but he fainted again. Second time he came to senses he trued to crawl to the nursery through the pain barrier.

Doc closed his eyes tight. Dahlia couldn't know, if he was trying to demonstrate the horror of the picture he was describing or there were something else…

- He saw his sister…he saw the blood pool and a penknife in her neck…

- Doc? – Dahlia raised slightly from the pillow she couldn't believe what she saw…but…there were tears on Doc's cheeks!

- Another corpse was lying near her, so heavily mutilated that it seemed a heap of meat and bones. But the scariest was that the boy understood he was not alone in the room. He saw some black silhouettes, heard some chatter, heard voices of hardly a human nature, heard some chinking of metal, but he couldn't see what exactly it was, and his blurred eyes couldn't help him…He threw a glance at his sister and understood she was still breathing…and everything went dark again.

Doc opened his eyes and looked steadily at the ceiling.

- Later on, at the hospital two unpleasant news were waiting for him – the murderer of his sister was crazy ex-owner of the house, who had managed to escape from the madhouse. But the worst was that his sister had been alive for some time after she was wounded. If only the boy hadn't lost his conscience…if only he knew…damn, the simplest tourniquet could have saved her! She was still alive, see?

Doc turned to his side, grabbed Dahlia by her shoulder and squeezed it but the girl didn't let a sound.

- Do you understand? He wouldn't hear the whole evenings his mother's squealing in pain "Why, Julian? Why did you fail to save her? Why Julian?"

Doc released her shoulder and buried his face in the pillow and although Dahlia couldn't hear anything she saw his shoulders were trembling, he cried…

- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… - Dahlia hugged him, she really was shocked by such a turn, she should never have thought, that such an innocent request will lead to such a consequences.

Even in her wildest dream she couldn't have imagined that the little boy who still felt guilt for his sister's death hid under the mask of titan's imperturbability, reasonableness and self-confidence. On the one hand she was stuck by this, but on the other… she finally understood what will and moral forces he had. "Only really strong personalities can allow them a moment of weakness" – her late mother used to say.

- So you're Julian. Julian Fraser. We've known each other for such a long time and I even didn't know your real name…

Julian. It's been a long time since anybody called him so. Perhaps since the time he became a doctor in this small town. Everybody called him just Doc, Doc Fraser. He could swear that only a few people knew his real name. He got out of the habit to hear it at all.

- That's nothing, not you alone… - he turned to Dahlia and judging from the expression on his face his emotional outburst vanished as fast as it had appeared. – Frankly speaking, nobody in this town or maybe on the whole planet cares about me. Only what I do, for whom I do and how I do it. For example you. For you, Dahlia, I'm just a person who gives you money for your clothes, food and other trifles and also the one who can give you drugs and watch you not to overdose them. Am I right?

Her face twitched, as if with pain, and she turned around.

- Oh come on. I don't blame you for this. I understand all perfectly. Anyway, it suits both of us.

- You haven't finished your story yet. – Dahlia interrupted him trying to speak as calm as possible. – What really happened of there? What was that cube? Where is it now? What happened to the murderer?

- Well, I used to brush my memories to sort them out, find any logical sequence. Explanation. But it's hard. See, it was long ago and I didn't witness the whole situation. I saw what I saw – another corpse and voices. Police found only my murdered sister. Imagine a little boy with a brain concussion and rich imagination. I could have seen a lot of nonsense. How many gossips could have appeared about this story…somebody added here, somebody there and try now to find where's the truth and where's lies. I can tell only two things – the murderer wasn't found, and the cube vanished too.

- But you still have some versions?

- Definitely. My family were the victims of a lunatic. You know how people tend to be too well off for their own good.

- But the nightmares and disease of your mother?

- Coincidence. When the person get sick strange things start happening to him – the temper changed from time to time, nightmares attack him. Add also sensitiveness of my mother, the scary story of the neighbour and no wonder she started dreaming about that cube.

- Yes, but the cube?

- If you're interested you can see it's copies on my desk.

- Wait a minute… - Dahlia nearly jumped. – those ones?

- No, not the same one, but the copy I made from my memory. You know, my psychiatrist gave me an advice to materialize my fears to get rid of them. "Paint your horror". Your know I'm a bad painter so I cut them off.

- So many…why?

- Each time I remembered my horror. Tomorrow I'll make one more.

Suddenly sweet and kind smile appeared on Doc's face and he opened his arms to hug the girl tenderly. Dahlia didn't resist and laid her head on his chest. Fraser patted her hair gently.

- Now you know why the most horrible stories are not legends and tale but those that happen to you?

Dahlia nodded. But suddenly she remembered her own brother…those awful story that he repeated again and again…what if…? Dahlia shivered at this thought.

- What's happened? – Doc felt her sudden fear. – Don't worry, there is nothing to fear here. And we'd fairly fear anything in the nearest future. Until we keep a secret.

- But if something happen?

- I won't leave you… - she shivered again at these words. – I won't leave you and your family.

- Why? – Dahlia raised her head and looked straight in his eyes.

He didn't answer, just smiled mysteriously, stroke her cheek, than he closed his eyes showing he was going to sleep. Only after two minutes of silence he asked in a calm voice:

- Don't tell anybody what I told you today. If they ask, just say that we gave way to our basic instinct.

Than Doc switched off the lamp, the room went dark and only dark-haired girl left alone with her thoughts and guesses.


End file.
